


Roundhouse Rock

by GlennRhee



Category: The Walking Dead (TV), Twd - Fandom
Genre: Bar Fight, Bar Room Brawl, Biker Daryl, M/M, Modern AU, Protective Daryl, bar au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-12 21:58:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5682298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlennRhee/pseuds/GlennRhee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rick is an accountant and gets dragged along to a dingy bar with his co-workers, and gets in trouble with the wrong guy. Luckily, Daryl sees the fight happening and intervenes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roundhouse Rock

The bar isn’t particularly neat or put together, and it sends Rick’s face turning sour and grossed out. The red bricks of the walls are chipping, the dust Rick has to brush off of his shoulder is evidence enough of that.

It’s just a regular saturday night for Rick; he got dragged out to the most obnoxious bar his friend Shane could find in the outer limits of King County, and was forced to socialize with co-workers he couldn’t stand and act like he was interested in the women there.  _ Always the outer bars with the grossest environments  _ Rick can’t help but mutter to himself as he idly and nervously walks up to the bar, stuttering as he asks the 50 year old brute bartender for a cold beer. The day before, Rick was pleaded to go to this low-end tavern for a couple of drinks with his other co-workers, and he only obliged because he was too insecure and embarrassed to say that it wasn’t his type of thing. Generally, guys like him, and in the workplace like he was, weren’t ok to say they would rather be watching a netflix series with a hot cup of tea and a book, not standing in some crowded, musty, and blaring, 1 star bar.

Rick receives his beer and returns a shy “Thank you” to the bartender, who glares at him with disgust. People like him know people like Rick, and know there’s an accident waiting to happen.

He scans the room filled with bikers and biker wives, travelling musicians who get shit-faced moments they play live, looking searching for somewhere vacant for him to sit and play on his phone, being the introvert he is. The tunes playing on the karaoke machine were turned up far too loud for Rick’s sensitive ears. He squeezed by the big bodies of drunks and loud annoyances to sit down in the seat he saw was open, and finally made his way to a cornered sanctuary. 

-

Daryl puffed down a cigarette that was almost done, gripping it with his index and thumb, twitching it so he wouldn’t burn his fingers on the butt of the cigarette. Hair down, sweaty and raggedy, his lucky leather vest with the aged and worn down angel wings stitched onto the back. Underneath it was a blackish brownish button up shirt, ragged and dug out from his old laundry basket. He sported his almost black but just blue enough jeans that had rips and holes in them at every joint, and of course, his rubber soled biker boots.

Daryl sucked down the last remaining inhales of his cig, and dabbed it in the ashtray laying in front of him. He turned around, cupping his cold perspiring mug of beer, and looked around the room as he used his free hand to pull another cigarette from the inside of his vest pocket.

-

Rick tapped and scrolled on his phone, opening and closing apps, finding himself bored very quickly of his phone with nothing to keep him entertained. Suddenly, he could hear hard hitting steps from directly behind him. He turned around thinking it was Shane, and put his phone away to greet him and ask if it was clear to go home. 

It wasn’t Shane.

Rick’s face went extremely pale, his cheeks sucking in and his eyes widening like two blue marbles.

“Uh, hi.” Rick was half turned around with his arm resting on the back of the bar seat and his legs sticking out the side.

“Yer in my fuckin’ seat.” 

_ Holy shit.  _ Rick thought to himself.  _ This guy is fuckin HUGE. _

Way too big for Rick to handle himself, this guy was mean business. Not only was his horseshoe mustache intimidating alone, the bandana around his head, the fact that he looked like he could swallow Rick whole, his curb-stomping biker boots and chains rattling all over his pockets and clothes, but the fact that he had a whole crew behind him of what looked like they had just escaped from jail, made Rick queasy at the sight.

“I- I’m sorry, what?” Rick stuttered and shook his head to get the words out. His hands began to clam up.

“You. Are in. My. Fucking. SEAT.” The huge monster-looking convict barked at him, and Rick flinched at the harsh tone.

“I di- I didn’t see anyone here when I sat down..” Rick quietly murmured, thinking in the back of his head the  _ last _ thing he should do is talk back or defend himself, but he couldn’t stop it from falling out of his mouth.

“Ya callin’ me a fuckin’ liar?!” The fiend grabbed the table Rick was sitting at with just his right hand, and flipped it backwards over his head, scaring the absolute shit out of Rick. He slammed his hand against the wall, cornering Rick perfectly where he wanted him.

“I’m sorry I’ll go I’ll g-” Rick was stopped mid-sentence and soon found himself with the man’s fist clenching the neck of his shirt, bringing him close to the man’s face. 

This barbarian had Rick outnumbered and outheightened, by like a whole foot, and brought Rick close to his face so he could huff and puff from anger.

“You ain’t goin’ nowhere.” The man grabbed a beer bottle out of his gang’s hand and smashed it against the wall, still holding Rick by his neck, almost lifting him off the ground.

Where the fuck is Shane?! Rick was sweating and nearly shaking, feeling his face sore already from the soon to be black eye and broken nose. 

The bottle clashed against the brick wall, stopping everybody else in the bar from talking and conversing, and leaving it dead silent in the whole shitty bar. 

Daryl perked his head up, squinting his eyes and sniffing his nose to act like he wasn’t interested, but clearly he was.  _ He’s pretty cute _ . Daryl couldn’t help but notice the curly haired short stubble wuss that was about to get his face bashed in by a local biker gang. He quickly became interested and lifted his head up higher to look over the crowds of heads staring in the same direction, and noticed that maybe this wasn’t gonna end well for the cute guy.

All of a sudden, the entire bar went wild, and in the corner of the bar while it was quiet a sudden crash of a glass mug was heard and slammed into some random guy’s head, and that’s when it started. The whole entire bar broke out into a fight, even the bartenders grabbed glasses from underneath the bar counter and smashed them against heads. Broken glass was flying everywhere, heads being slammed into walls and pieces of wood shooting every which way from destroyed stools and tables, it was insane. 

Rick was still being held onto by the man, it was as if the two standing where the only ones not fighting, until Rick found a bottle straight into his head, breaking into 50 pieces and leaving a small cut on Rick’s head and blood dripping on his eyebrow. Rick was now on the floor as he fell from the grip and planted himself directly on the ground, lifting himself up with his hands covered in glass. The biker screamed from insane levels of testosterone and hyped up adrenaline and grabbed another bottle to smash. 

Rick was picked up yet again before he could act, in shock and scared for his life. Leaving his house on a saturday to a dingy bar was the last thing he wanted, until he realized the last thing he wanted would to be beaten up by a guy twice his size with no help from his ‘friends’. 

With his hand raised wielding a bottle, and his other hand grabbing Rick yet again, Rick started to squirm and try to escape the tight grip, but failed embarrassingly. 

Like a knight in shining armor, as the biker swung his arm back to fling it back again and knock Rick unconscious, Daryl slammed his mug of beer right into his face.

The barbarian fell down like a bag of bricks, immediately getting knocked out and left to stay there till he awoke hours later.

Rick was dropped of the biker’s hold on him, and fell to his ass, leaning up and flinching at the sight of whoever just saved him.

“Let’s go ya coward!” Daryl was in the midst of ducking from flying beer bottles when he bent down to grab Rick’s arm and lead him to safety. Everything was happening so quickly, Rick could barely keep up at all. He didn’t even remember how the biker was defeated, but that didn’t matter now. What did matter was who the hell was this guy and where was he taking him? 

Moments later, the two busted out of the doors of the saloon and both fell onto the sandy and dusty ground near the entrance. Bike after bike after bike lined up along side the bar, with occasional beaten up sedans to sit beside them. Rick was covered in dirt and blood and completely speechless. He wiped his face off of the blood, looking down at his hands and thinking to himself  _ “Is this my blood?” _

Daryl was lying on his back in the dirt, puffing out air and making tiny noises of relief and slight frightness, be he couldn’t let Rick know that. After all he did just call Rick a coward.

Daryl leaned forward to see the lights flashing through the windows and shadows bouncing every which way, the fight was still going on and Rick was still sitting staring at his hands. Daryl propped himself up and brushed the sand off, waddling over to the beat up man who was just rescued. He places his hand on the back of Rick’s shoulder, and Rick jumped at the touch. 

“Hold yer horses jus’ wait’a damn minute.” Daryl leaned down to inspect the wound and squinted his eyes for better vision.

“Com’on big boy. We need’a getchu fixed.” Daryl exhaled. Rick murmured a bit and was dripping with sweat, nervous as hell and scared as hell.

He very acutely got up and followed Daryl.

“Don’ look so scared.” Daryl walked over to his bike that was leaning against the pedestal it stood on, and rummaged through the bag that was saddled over the seat. He kept fiddling around as it was always messy and hard to find things in there. 

“Well come here!” Rick stood a few feet away, his bloody hand close to his chest and a perpetual look of worry on his countenance. Rick snapped out of his daze and hurriedly walked over to Daryl’s bike.

“Hop on.” Daryl ordered Rick to take a seat on his harley, and that was not something Daryl would let just anyone do. Daryl kept filing through his bag until he exclaimed “Ah ha!” 

Rick isn’t sure how, but he found himself sitting on the bike of the cutest rider he’s ever seen, being treated and dabbed with cotton balls on his wounds. Rick hissed at the sting of pain jolting through his hand or head, wherever the cut was, but it went away quickly each he time he saw the cute scruffy man go “Shit, sorry.”

“Why’dya help me?” Rick said in almost a child’s tone, looking as though he was lost in the mall and couldn’t find his mom.

“No offense, but you’sa about that close to gettin’ yer ass beat ta death by that guy.” Things happened so fast for Rick, he was dizzy just thinking about it. In less than a minute he had been bashed over the head with a beer bottle, grabbed by this handsome savior, taken outside, and is now in the middle of being patched up.

“Where the hell did you get all these supplies?” Rick turns his head away from Daryl’s attention, causing Daryl to fuss from being interrupted in the middle of his medical work. He wasn’t an expert in the field, but he’s learned a thing or two from bar fights himself.

“I been in a’couple fights in my day. Always gotta be prepared.” Daryl crinkles up the packaging for the thin bandage after he placed it over Rick’s head wound, taping it over with medical tape.

The stars were especially out this night, and the insects were active more than usual. Crickets were heard endlessly, the sound of gentle wind brushing through the barren trees alongside the dusty highway soothing the loud aching in Rick’s head from the noisy music playing inside.

Maybe it was his head acting up, since not moments before he had a bottle broken over it, or maybe he was just caught in the moment, but something came over Rick. Rick could sense that Daryl wasn’t just being nice, he went completely out of his way. Something in Daryl caught Rick’s eye, and he could feel the tension between the two as their night together came to an end, so Rick did something about it.

Rick leaned up from the bike seat and pecked a kiss right on Daryl’s mouth. There wasn’t any tongue, no matter how bad Rick wanted to just make out with him right there, but it was sensational. Daryl was completely caught by surprise, but Daryl wanted it just as much as Rick did, he just didn’t think he’d get it. Daryl’s eyes popped open when it happened, but with Rick’s closed, he gently lowered his too, breathing in and inhaling the kiss so perfectly planted on Daryl’s lips. Rick couldn’t help but smile because he could feel Daryl’s scruffy chin hairs brushing against his. The two stood there, kissing gently and rubbing eachother’s hair with their hands, completely lost in the moment.

Rick softly pulled away when they were done, and looked into Daryl’s eyes.

“Whatd’ya do that for?” Daryl smirked, rubbing Rick’s cheeks with his hands.

Rick looked back at Daryl, sparkling blue eyes and all the stars shining down on the two. He didn’t say anything, nothing was really needed, because Daryl knew deep down why.   
  


_ Maybe, this night wasn’t so bad after all. _

**Author's Note:**

> I was listening to this song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU6VPy4RvSE
> 
> and I immediately thought of a bar brawl between Rick leading Daryl to get involved, and so this fic happened. :)


End file.
